Grand Theft Auto Online: Celebrate the Weeny Issi With Bonuses, Freebies, and More

This week in Grand Theft Auto Online, score a slew of Weeny Issi bonuses, freebies, and more to celebrate your teeny-car love.

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Outriders Supports Character Builds That Barely Need Guns at All

Outriders features a character customisation system so flexible that you can create a build that rarely needs to fire a gun. Talking to IGN, Outriders' creative director, Bartosz Kmita, said "There are builds where you can even resign from shooting at all." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/28/outriders-preview"] The possibility comes from one of Outriders' core combat philosophies. "We didn't want to create powers as an addition to the shooting mechanics," says Kmita, referring to the game's large selection of supernatural abilities. "We wanted it to be a 50/50 approach where the powers are as important as guns." But that balance between the elements can be shifted as you progress and develop your character. "Through your different choices, depending on the loot you will find and on the character progression tree, you will decide if you want to shift more onto the skill side and make it even more of an RPG game with the skills, or maybe more of a shooting style, or stay 50/50," explains Kmita. When I ask Kmita if it's possible to make the game 90/10 focused on the supernatural powers, he replied "It's even more, because it depends on the items you will find. You will have the possibility to use your skills many times without cooldowns. There are builds where you can even resign from shooting at all." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=outriders-first-screenshots&captions=true"] Lead game designer Piotr Nowakowski points out that the World Tier - which dictates the difficulty of the game - may impact how successful your builds are. "There are ways to create builds that are really skills focused, with super short cooldowns that are resetting them all the time, but it's just a question of will that build work on higher tiers?" he muses. "I can imagine on lower tiers I will probably be able to pass the game almost without shooting, but that's at very low tiers where enemies are not so challenging." The World Tier system goes up to tier 15, with World Tier 3 being considered equivalent to 'normal' difficulty. The suggestion from Nowakowski, then, is that fully skills-based characters could be viable on the easy and standard difficulties. As for anyone who'd rather go all-guns, Nowakowski notes that there are supportive powers that you should consider in your build. "There are skills that are not based on power, but are more about supporting your playstyle with the weapons," he notes. "Blocking someone, CCing him, and then having nice and easy headshots." For more from Outriders, check out our hands-on preview, a full 17 minutes of gameplay, and a look at the classes and powers in the game. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

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Outriders Is Online Only, But Not a Service Game

Outriders requires a constant internet connection, but this does not mean that it is a service game akin to the likes of Destiny or The Division. Talking to IGN, Outriders' creative director Bartosz Kmita confirmed that "It's online only. We have a lot of things in the backend so you have to be connected to the internet to be able to play." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/28/outriders-preview"] Outriders is a co-op shooter, but can be played solo, despite the requirement for an internet connection. The always online nature may have players questioning if Outriders is a service game, but Kmita emphasises that's not the case. "We wanted to release the game as a complete product, so the story, the endgame, everything is in the box when you buy it," he states. "We are not chopping the content we have created to release it month by month, we are giving all what we have created on day one. It's all that we think is necessary to have a complete experience with Outriders." That also means that the microtransactions that you'd associate with service games won't be present in Outriders. "The bad things that are sometimes connected to games as a service, like loot boxes or any pay to win mechanics, we are against them," says Kmita. "So we're not using them at all in our game." [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=outriders-first-screenshots&captions=true"] But the 'whole product' approach doesn't mean that developer People Can Fly will not be supporting Outriders after launch. "You can think of it as a more old school approach like the Diablo games, where you get the more or less finished product and then a big expansion from time to time that expands the whole game and whole universe," explains Kmita. "Not that every week they add two additional items or small things, or they force you to do some activities to unlock some other things. It's not our approach." For more on Outriders, check out our hands-on preview and a closer look at the RPG systems at play in the game. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

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Outriders Is a Looter-Shooter With Super Soldier Serum

Outriders has the best abilities that I've ever used in a looter-shooter. It's a power trip approach to supernatural skills unlike anything I've played in the genre. Spectral blades reduce time-slowed enemies to skeletons and entrail ribbons, while whips of flame draw unlucky victims close before roasting them to ashes. Bullets are caught mid-air, as if manipulated by The Matrix's Neo, and hurled back at their owners. These powers make you feel like a super soldier that attended magic school. A recent hands-on with Outriders provided me with almost unlimited access to this outrageous buffet of powers, and each new skill sampled felt as exciting as the last. But while acting as an extensive combat showcase, the demonstration offered little to do outside of a couple of linear, bare-bones quests. It's left me concerned as to what kind of a game Outriders will turn out to be beyond the perimeter of its great and gory killboxes. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/28/outriders-preview"] Developer People Can Fly deserves praise for how it has made abilities the core component of the combat loop. In games like Borderlands, Destiny, and The Division, your character's skills are the punctuation that divide lengthy gunplay sentences. In Outriders, the abilities are the sentences; thanks to generously short cooldowns you'll be engulfing enemies in flames or impaling them with stalagmites every few seconds. While gunplay doesn't hold up to the refined standards of its peers, the lack of punch from Outriders' weapons is more than compensated for by the frequent barrage of gory spectacle. The closest point of comparison is Diablo, in both the excessiveness of the abilities' visual effects and how they form the backbone of every encounter. Also akin to Diablo is how each of Outriders' classes feels wholly distinct, rather than variations of a standard soldier template. The hands-on allowed me time with the Pyromancer, Devastator, and Trickster classes, and each feels genuinely unique to play. The heavy focus on abilities means more time is spent using the bespoke elements of a class, reducing the constant chorus of class-agnostic guns. Minor tweaks between classes provide surprisingly significant gameplay shifts, too. Killing enemies regenerates health, but while the Pyromancer can leech HP from a distance with sniper shots, the Trickster must get in close enough to smell an enemy's breath. It's a system that demands constant aggression, but all classes must feed it in different ways. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Playing%20the%20same%20level%20as%20two%20different%20classes%20makes%20Outriders%20feel%20almost%20like%20two%20different%20shooters."]As a result, playing through the same level as the Pyromancer and Trickster makes Outriders feel almost like two different shooters. As the former, I found myself a little too enthusiastic about Heatwave; a skill that projects a wall of flame that travels forward and through cover, searing enemies who thought they were safe behind walls. I could then quickly follow up with F.A.S.E.R Beam - an extravagant Iron Man-style flame laser - to cremate mini-bosses and rejuvenate my health bar. But as the Trickster, I found myself dying as if I'd decided it was the latest craze. Outriders pits you against a constant barrage of enemies, and because of its close-combat nature, the Trickster requires you to be right in the thick of them. The Hunt The Prey ability slingshots you behind a far-away enemy for the perfect backstab, while Cyclone Slice sends you whirling like a bladed spinning top into gangs of enemies. Many skills inflict a slow effect on foes, which helps make the roughest moments a little easier, but the Trickster is best suited to a player with strong melee crowd control talents. That, alas, is not me, and ultimately I found the hordes far easier to manage at the range afforded by the Pyromancer. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=outriders-first-screenshots&captions=true"] That's not to say Outriders' close combat is bad - far from it - but this feels like the best example in the looter-shooter genre of a game where it is vital to find the class that compliments your playstyle. Are you close or ranged? Or, as I discovered, are you somewhere in the middle, a battleground supported by the earth-based Devastator? The hardiest of the three classes revealed so far, the Devastator is able to blast into combat like a boulder launched from a trebuchet. That's almost literally one of his skills - Gravity Leap - which helps immediately close distances and deal damage. This can then be chained with Boulderdash, which turns the Devastator into an Incredible Hulk-like battering ram. Each class can only have three abilities active at a time, so finding a trio of accompanying skills is a vital character building block. For the Devastator, that last ability could be the self-explanatory Reflect Bullets. Or it could be Impale, which I'm pretty fond of, mostly due to the animation of an enemy succumbing as a spike erupts from the earth and up through their chin. If it's somehow not already clear, I love Outriders' approach to combat. It's surprising, energetic and wild. But even after a couple of hours with the game, I find myself still not knowing what Outriders is. People Can Fly has been clear that it is not a service game, but I'm unsure what that eliminates from the equation. Based on the hands-on, though, it appears that Outriders may be a largely linear shooter with not enough structural ambition to hold up its joyous battles. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/02/17/outriders-classes-and-powers-trailer"] The demonstration afforded me just two activities, both of which felt underwhelming. Instructions were offered by forgettable characters, the geography of the locations felt generic, and the map seemed barren of any activities or secrets. The core quest was simply to follow a road to a bunker and talk to a person, with that journey snaking through several enemy camps, while the sidequest - discovered by taking the only sideroad off the main path - was an endurance-test wave battle within the confines of a different bunker. The experience was sorely lacking in anything to do beyond following the quest marker. While I'd rather a focused experience over Borderlands' excessive opening of twenty lockers in every room and Destiny's outrageously time-consuming challenges, I hope that further looks at Outriders will reveal more depth to its wider world. If Outriders doesn't have a myriad of activities beyond its campaign objectives, that puts a lot of pressure on its loot pursuit to be compelling. But that's another area I have concerns about. As a looter-shooter, Outriders needs a constant flow of weapons that feel more exciting than just tools for the job. But my experience suggests that grabbing new gear feels more like topping up stats than finding something that makes your heart feel full. The hands-on provided an uninspiring assortment of shotguns, pistols, and assault rifles, and their replacements were almost identical aside from a less rusty finish and perhaps a garish paint job. For the system to succeed, it needs to demonstrate an arsenal as similarly flavourful as Destiny's. [poilib element="quoteBox" parameters="excerpt=Outriders%20still%20needs%20to%20demonstrate%20an%20arsenal%20as%20flavourful%20as%20Destiny%E2%80%99s."]If Outriders' end goal is to just be a straightforward shooter, then it does have a handy trick up its sleeve: an escalating difficulty system that builds pressure and tests your limits. Not dying for an extended period causes the World Tier to increase - up to a dizzying level 15 - with each tier upping the level of enemies and providing higher chances of better loot drops. In the hands-on session I experienced the increase from World Tier 3 to 4, which translates as normal to hard mode. The difference is immediate, with combat demanding much closer attention to enemy location and numbers. The extra pressure forces your muscle memory to make you dive for cover, but the health-leeching system demands that you get back out there and kill something. God knows what kind of challenge Tier 15 offers, but that'll be a Twitch stream to watch. It's very easy to fall for Outriders' combat. The combination of powerful elemental effects, kill-to-heal approach, and melon-bursting headshots makes it a punchy, kinetic affair. But right now, I need to see much more of its world, activities, and systems before I'm convinced that this tremendous violence is a vehicle for something worthwhile. I hope a deeper world is waiting in the wings, though, because I really want to impale a man with a spiky rock again. And again. And again. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer. You can follow him on Twitter. 

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Revamp Your Island With These Animal Crossing Custom Design Paths

Here are some Animal Crossing Custom Design paths to connect your island in style!

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Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition Release Date Announced

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered Edition will be released on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android on August 27, 2020. Square Enix's Web Content Editor Duncan Heaney gave more details on PlayStation.Blog for the upcoming remastered edition of the GameCube classic that was first released in Japan in 2003. A new release date trailer was also released, which you can see below. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/05/28/final-fantasy-crystal-chronicles-remastered-edition-release-date-announce-trailer"] Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition was originally revealed in September 2018 was delayed a couple times, most recently from its January 23, 2020 date. This Final Fantasy game is a 1-4 player RPG that follows the Crystal Caravans, a group of adventures on the hunt for the previous and rare liquid known as myrrh that can cleanse and maintain a "crystal the protects them, and their world, from a poisonous gas." This Remastered Edition adds improved visuals and audio, character voiceovers, online multiplayer with crossplay, new challenging dungeons, and a new Mimic feature. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=final-fantasy-crystal-chronicles-remastered-edition-release-date-screenshots&captions=true"] This Mimic feature is described as: "By collecting stamps, visiting Moogle Houses or completing difficult dungeons, you'll get Memory Crystals which you can use to change your characters' appearance to that of various characters you'll meet on your adventure. If you want to add a bit more pizazz to your party, now you can!" In our review of the original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, we said "The bottom line is that Crystal Chronicles is a fun multiplayer game if you own enough GBAs. There are some problems, more than I'd like to see from Square, but overall it's a fun experience. The single player game, on the other hand, isn't nearly as fun." [poilib element="accentDivider"] Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com. Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who has always wanted to try this game and this feels like the perfect excuse. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

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Fortnite: Chapter 2 - Season 3 Launching a Little Later Than Planned

Fortnite: Chapter 2 - Season 3 will be launching a little later than expected, giving players a few extra days to fill out their Season 2 Battle Passes. Epic announced that Fortnite: Chapter 2 - Season 2 will be extended by one week, with Season 3 now set to launch on Thursday, June 11 instead of June 4. Epic also confirmed that "a one-time-only live event called The Device, now scheduled for Saturday, June 6 at 2 PM ET (please show up 30 minutes early to help secure your spot, space is limited!)." [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/full-fortnite-x-travis-scott-astronomical-concert"] Originally set to end on April 30, Epic extended Fortnite: Chapter 2 - Season 2, a season which has seen the inclusion of a Deadpool skin as well as several other X-Force skins. Fortnite's second season in Chapter 2 has had a spy-themed aesthetic surrounding the many events that have taken place in the game over recent months. But the season has also been home to the impressive Travis Scott in-game concert experience, the debut of a new trailer for Christopher Nolan's Tenet, a Party Royale concert event. Epic hasn't revealed much about what Season 3 will entail as part of this update. While we wait to learn more, be sure to read up on Epic's plans for next-gen Fortnite versions on PS5 and Xbox Series X, and check out Epic's Unreal Engine 5 tech demo. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=unreal-engine-5-playstation-5-tech-demo&captions=true"] And for more on Fortnite, be sure to check out IGN's wiki Fortnite guide for all the latest tips on challenges, tips, and more. [poilib element="accentDivider"] Jonathon Dornbush is IGN's Senior News Editor and host of Podcast Beyond! Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.

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